Design, deconstruction, and development details of our indie RPG!

Dreamblazers Update: Week of September 28, 2015

Wow. I feel so behind on pretty much everything right now that it’s kind of insane. x_x
But let’s not allow that to halt the updates!

Pixel Art

This is a Zanari Arcadian, a member of the Zanari species! Like the Griffinaire for the elemental griffins, it’s the only member you’ll be seeing on this blog since it’s the only one to appear early on. =) They tend to live in tropical areas—and although Miharu is pretty paradisiacal, it’s not quite tropical. The Zanari are capable of tool use, as you can see, but ultimately aren’t intelligent to the degree of even kobolds; you can expect decent power out of them, but not much in the ways of tricks.

Well, that’s when it’s used as an adjective, anyway, but I adopted it into a noun. :P Since this Zanari is singled out as an Arcadian, you can bet, of course, that the others aren’t idyllically innocent…

Moving on!

Traditional Art

Flora’s updated some dialogue portraits, with the old showing on the left and the new on the right:

They’re also shown from top to bottom in order of increasingly complex changes! Astrid’s shoulder has been brought up a bit; Leaf’s shoulders also changed and her armor and collar have gained some depth and shading; Sakura’s portrait got zoomed out because she had much more of a close-up than the other characters until now.

Of course, these changes affect all their portraits universally, so I’ll go back and update the portrait collage… and you’ll see it when a new page goes up later this week showcasing art assets. :D

Speaking of the new page, Becca has finished more overworld goodies (and this should be the last of them for now) that I’ll be incorporating into the design of Miharu—and those will be up too with the rest of the pixel art collection and traditional art collection.

A Question of Audience

Multiple artists here on my Dreamblazers project have singled out and commented on the cute and colorful world almost immediately after we started working together. And deservedly so! It’s a very prominent feature of the multiverse I’m creating.

I’d also mention that it’s quite an optimistic world, at least in the sense that it’s not a cynical one. You’ll find no politics in the game, no blood, no drugs, no sexuality, and not even one instance of cursing. I hope I eventually have to run Dreamblazers through the ESRB and, when I do, I’m not convinced that the content rating will be even as “severe” as E10+. E10+ is possible and I have a few particular scenes in mind when I say that, but if The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker can pass through and get an E rating twice then I’d like to think I’m fine.

So with all that in mind, it might be easy to assume I’m writing the story for a young audience—or, at least, “for everyone.”

…but no, I wouldn’t say that at all. In the first place, I doubt that young audiences want 16-bit RPGs. Even if they did, though, I’m creating a love letter to the 90s—and I don’t only mean stylistically, but also in terms of homage, parody, and more—from before their time. And even if their parents made them familiar with all that stuff, then there’s still one big reason that I can’t say I’m making Dreamblazers for a young audience:

Not every character has her vocabulary (not even close in most cases), but just have a look at the Dialogue page; in terms of subject matter, she’s in great company. Nearly every character talks about a very deep personal issue: causality and coincidence, free will and determinism, relational trust and vulnerability, the nature of anger, cowardice and courage, and what it even means to live.